We of the Never-Never eBook

The Dandy out of sight, Johnny went back to his work,
which happened to be hammering the curves out of sheets
of corrugated iron.

“Now we shan’t be long,” he shouted,
hammering vigorously, and when I objected to the awful
din, he reminded me, with a grin, that it was “all
in the good cause.” When “smoothed
out,” as Johnny phrased it, the iron was to
be used for capping the piles that the house was built
upon, “to make them little white ants stay at
home.”

“We’ll smooth all your troubles out, if
you give us time,” he shouted, returning to
the hammering after his explanation with even greater
energy. But by dinnertime some one had waddled
into our lives who was to smooth most of the difficulties
out of it, to his own, and our complete satisfaction.

Just as Sam announced dinner a cloud of dust creeping
along the horizon attracted our attention.

“Foot travellers!” Dan decided; but something
emerged out of the dust, as it passed through the
sliprails, that looked very like a huge mould of white
jelly on horse-back.

Directly it sighted us it rolled off the horse, whether
intentionally or unintentionally we could not say,
and leaving the beast to the care of chance, unfolded
two short legs from somewhere and waddled towards us—­a
fat, jovial Chinese John Falstaff.

“Good day, boss! Good day, missus!
Good day, all about,” he said in cheerful salute,
as he trundled towards us like a ship’s barrel
in full sail. “Me new cook, me—­”
and then Sam appeared and towed him into port.

But Johnny knew, as did most Territorians. “You’ve
struck Cheon, that’s all,” he said.
“Talk of luck! He’s the jolliest old
josser going.”

The “jolliest old josser” seemed difficult
to repress; for already he had eluded Sam, and, reappearing
in the kitchen doorway, waddled across the thoroughfare
towards us.

“Me new cook!” he repeated, going on from
where he had left off. “Me Cheon!”
and then, in queer pidgin-English, he solemnly rolled
out a few of his many qualifications:

“Me savey all about,” he chanted.
“Me savey cook ‘im, and gard’in’,
and milk ‘im, and chuckie, and fishin’
and shootin’ wild duck.” On and on
he chanted through a varied list of accomplishments,
ending up with an application for the position of
cook. “Me sit down? Eh boss?”
he asked, moon-faced and serious.

“Please yourself!” the Maluka laughed,
and with a flash of white teeth and an infectious
chuckle Cheon laughed and nodded back; then, still
chuckling, he waddled away to the kitchen and took
possession there, while we went to our respective
dinners, little guessing that the truest-hearted,
most faithful, most loyal old “josser”
had waddled into our lives.

CHAPTER XI

Cheon rose at cock-crow ("fowl-sing-out,” he
preferred to call it), and began his duties by scornfully
refusing Sam’s bland offer of instruction in
the “ways of the homestead.”